The New York Times reported that nearly 300 people were killed in the course of the assault. Now, Morsi’s government did clamp down on the opposition, secularism and acted the same way much as its predecessor did, and I believe that removing Morsi was not a wrong decision, despite him being the “elected" president, for the above reasons. That said, the military’s violent crackdown on the Islamists is only going to make things worse.

What is happening now is a civil war between the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood, and if the latter perceive themselves as the oppressed group, it is likely that they will try to link up with other militant Islamic groups and resort to terrorism. I don’t see how anybody is going to benefit in that situation.

Revolution is never easy and the establishment of a democratic, secular government that respects the rights of all people relies on many variables. Election, no matter how open, fair, or transparent, cannot safeguard democracy by itself; it requires a mutual agreement between the party in power and the oppositions to uphold the democratic, secular institutions and resolve their disagreements in a reasonable, non-violent manner.

Radicalism for radicalism’s sake obscures the fact that some ideas are just impracticable and generally bad enough that they should have no place in any functioning democracy. If people cannot think clearly and merely try to gain power and support by associating themselves with like-minded people, they will never realize that they have been wrong, and will try to influence people with increasingly irrational actions. The society will be torn apart with such acts and peace would cease to exist since people would be living in fear. Those who want to change the society need to keep that in mind. The abyss does stare back.

6 則回應給 In Other Parts of the World: Egyptian Military Launched an Assault on the Islamists

The abyss stares back in HK too. When the radical pan democratic bunch adopted the rogue style of harassment in protest against the government officials or the Chief Executive, I can imagine how complacent they were then. Now, they have got paid back.

In a sense, no, it is not double standard. The government has asymmetrical power over other groups in the society. It is reasonable to hold people in public office, especially those who enjoy executive power, to a higher standard. I dislike the term Cultural Revolution being used to describe what the recent social conflicts. Cultural Revolution was a government sponsored anarchy in a limited scale; it was designed to alter social order. Neither the government nor the radical democrats has to capacity to do such a thing.

However, the pro-government groups are not part of government… Sorry, I forgot the quotation marks around “Cultural Revolution-like attacks and violence". People who liken recent events to the Cultural Revolution had no idea what the latter is about.

Consider this: Jiang Jieshi had obvious triad link and many believed that he himself was part of a triad organization and he was personally involved in the assassination of many people. People tend to let that go for political reasons, and I don’t think it matters much. Pro-government groups are way more influential than the democratic groups, so it kind of balanced out.

It is obvious that those who suggest it is “Cultural Revolution-like" don’t know what they are talking about.